Hearts
by SublimeClarity
Summary: As Ginny's nonage gets twisted beyond all recognition, so do her scrawled hearts... Rated for a split second of gore, sadism and general unpleasantness. TRGW, HPGW


**Author's Notes:** Written for **fanfic100** and the prompt "Heart". Rated for a split-second of gore, sadism and general unpleasantness. A million thanks to **vacantskies** and **acoustics1220** for beta-reading.

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**Hearts**

**I.**

Potions homework proved unbelievably boring that day, and the thought of Snape's collapsible nose hovering over her errors did nothing to help matters. It wasn't long before Ginny's hand moved from the roll of parchment, where it was jotting down the seventh use of dragon's blood, to a nearby scroll.

"Ginny Weasley," she wrote down, and beneath it, without even a moment's consideration, "Harry Potter." She had repeated this process so many times, his name might as well be part of hers by now.

_Part of hers..._

The girl immediately swapped her quill for a more colourful one and scribbled "Ginny Potter" in pink. This she encircled with an equally pink heart.

After painstaking scrutiny, that version was discarded as "not official enough."

As was "Ginny Molly Potter," "G. M. Potter," "Mrs. Potter," and even "The Girl Who Married The Boy Who Lived," until naught but one white island survived in the pink sea of calligraphy and doodles. When that, too, was occupied by "Ginevra Potter," the redhead switched to a blank page.

One stroke of the quill formed the heart. Another the oft-rehearsed "Ginevra." The third one, as casual and absentminded as its predecessors, finished "-- Riddle."

Thick, dark and seething, "Ginevra Riddle" seemed to wink at her for a second before, to Ginny's horror, it sunk into the page.

It had been an easy mistake to make; after all, the diary's pages remained perpetually blank.

Tom's response was instant, robbing her of the chance to come up with an explanation: "Ginny...?"

"I was just trying out the new quill Ron bought for my birthday. Its ink changes colours according to the writer's emotions at the time, see?" the girl wrote hastily, her letters fading from one shade to another at breakneck speed. "I don't know why I haven't mentioned it before. Scratch that, I do. Everything came second to my excitement over Hogwarts back in August -- that's when my birthday was. Do you like it? It wasn't very expensive, but I still thought Ron shouldn't have bought it, when we don't even have money for new robes. Ron doesn't even have money for a new _wand_, for that matter, and his current one has been backfiring ever since the Whomping Willow broke it... Oh, but you already know about --"

"'Ginevra Riddle' has a nice ring to it."

**II.**

Ginny spent hours agonizing over the meaning of his comment. Although she had pursued boys ever since she'd heard of Harry Potter, this was the first piece of feedback she'd ever received, and it perplexed her beyond any other element of her short life. _Was he taking the mickey out of her? Did he like her? Did he love her? Did he mean to marry her?_ She was experiencing something akin to the itch a snake must feel right before shedding its skin; her body thrashed on the mattress; her stomach jumped as if a hare was forcing its way out; her face contorted into frowns of confusion, only to burst into grins of exhilaration moments later.

Her dream, too, evolved to accommodate this fever.

She was standing barefoot in a meadow, with sunrays on her cheeks and birdsong in her ears. But she had little time to appreciate the visuals: a glimpse of yellow daisies in the distance, a glance at the bark of a nearby willow, and a blindfold was lowered over her eyes.

"What are you doing?" the redhead asked Tom -- for her gut ensured her that was the perpetrator's identity.

There came no reply but a low pecking sound, reminiscent of the one chicks made coming out of their egg.

"Why won't you tell me?" Pause. _Peck_. "What is this for?" Pause. _Peck_. "Why are we here?" A longer pause. _Peck, peck, peck_. "Fine, if it's all the same to you, I will just go ahead and remove this --"

The boy grabbed her wrist before she made good of her threat. "Be quiet. You'll see soon enough," he said gently.

Indeed, mere heartbeats later, the noise ceased and a pair of hands landed on her shoulders. Tom spun her around -- once, with the protest ebbing in her throat; twice, with the breeze caressing her skin; thrice, with the grass tickling her toes; a fourth time, with the blindness enhancing every other sensation; a fifth time...

"What do you think?"

After those successive spins, the sudden onslaught of light overwhelmed Ginny and she fell back against his chest. Tom gripped her arms to steady her.

As soon as the girl found her bearings, the thing he had meant for her to see jumped out at her. Wedged in the willow was a knife -- a signpost for the carved heart beside it and the slanted "GINEVRA RIDDLE" it contained.

"Oh no, not on the tree, Tom, no..." Ginny whimpered, remembering her mother's admonishment about plants feeling pain like any other living entity.

"Yes, Ginny, yes," Tom whispered in her ear. "So everyone will know."

**III.**

Up in the girls' dormitory, Ginny froze midway through a wand movement, dropped her wand, pulled her bed-curtains shut and reached for her diary.

The average observer would have blamed this on fatigue and worry over the attacks.

He wouldn't have been far off mark; the one responsible for the girl's unusual behaviour was also responsible for her fatigue, her worry, and the attacks themselves.

"Not now, Riddle --"

"There you are. I've been calling you for what must have been _hours_. How did you manage it? Been tailing that prefect brother of yours again?"

"No," Ginny wrote succinctly. Gone were the times when she would have babbled about Percy loosening his watch over her in favour of quality time with the Ravenclaw prefect, about her classmates ignoring her blues, about Harry ignoring her existence. "I just made sure to stay in crowded rooms and corridors between classes."

"And where are you now?"

"The common room."

"Save your lies for those less adept at reading through them. Where are you now?"

Ginny made an attempt to roll out of bed, but her legs were no longer hers to command. The bile rose in her throat as Riddle wiggled her toes to demonstrate just that.

"The girls' dormitory," she scribbled at last. "But don't even think of trying anything -- Fred and George are out in the common room playing Exploding Snap with Angelina and Katie, someone will see..."

"Tell me the time."

"I told you it's no use --"

"The _time_, you worthless brat."

"Half past eleven."

The paper stayed blank for a while; Riddle seemed to be processing this information.

"We will try again tomorrow," he concluded.

The girl breathed a sigh of relief and laid her quill down, waiting for Riddle to surrender his control on her legs. Nothing of the sort happened.

"Is there anything else?" she asked tentatively.

"No."

Ginny gave him a minute's space to elaborate. Upon realizing he had no plans of doing so, she continued: "Then... could I go?"

His reply hit her with a force that left her shivering:

"No."

The invisible circuit between her quill and her brain overloaded on protests, but the fragments that made their way to paper -- "You can't mean to keep me up all night... There's nothing in it for you... Missed enough sleep from my nightmares and your whims lately... I haven't even finished practicing Charms, and Professor Flitwick said I'm falling behind, said he didn't expect this from Bill's and Charlie's and Percy's sister... Last week I almost nodded off in class, and he said, he said 'don't let it happen again'... _Don't_ let it happen again, Tom..." -- left Riddle apathetic.

Only when the tears replaced the ink did his words surface, like worms in tequila, grotesque and unpredictable. "Are you quite finished? To answer your infantile monologue, yes, I do intend to keep you awake, and yes, I am aware that 'cui bono' ostensibly falls flat here. It's high time you learned that I am inclined to do things simply because I _can_. Perhaps this will make you think twice about lingering in crowded rooms and corridors next time. That's it -- that's it, cry, little Ginny, who's too weak and stupid to do anything else. You should know I'm doing you a favour by preventing further blunders with that Charms spellwork of yours. At least the wizarding world won't be losing a great mind in you -- not like your Harry..."

Ginny could not muster a word in response; all the emotions frothing inside her seemed to be distilled into tears.

"I'm going to kill him, you know. The greatest moment in history, and besides being lucky enough to instigate it, you might be lucky enough to witness it. How would you like that? Him writhing at my feet, at your side, him staring into your eyes and _knowing_ you are to blame for his predicament, him bathed in that beautiful green light..."

"I hate you." Three words to cover a spectrum of negative feelings. "I --" she repeated, looking to make a mantra out of it, but not a second too late, Riddle usurped her hand, and Riddle united the opposites and wed the extremes once more, as only he could.

"I love you," Ginny ended up writing.

"Make up your mind, won't you," and she could picture the proverbial wolf's smirk beneath the sheepskin as he added, "Ginevra Riddle."

_Ginevra Riddle frolicking with Ginevra Potter in her heart and in her hearts (sometimes pink, sometimes red,_ now black_), hearts on parchment, hearts on diary pages, hearts on trees..._

That name brought back so many memories that she _really_ couldn't make up her mind, and she hated (_loved_) him all the more for it.

"Well, seeing as I went to the trouble of taking over your right hand, we might as well have some fun with it... You're such pleasant company, little Ginny. I couldn't have hoped for a better toy."

He pulled her fingers all the way back, and the night was still young.

**IV.**

She was standing barefoot in a meadow, with sunrays on her cheeks and birdsong in her ears. But she had little time to appreciate the visuals: a glimpse of yellow daisies in the distance, a kindling of familiarity in her mind, and a blindfold was lowered over her eyes.

"What are you doing?" the redhead asked Tom.

Cool metal was pressed against her neck, reminding her that knives had other uses besides carving and chopping; that Tom had an edge under all the sweet-talk. It receded, but the warning hung in the air like a meandering Bludger.

"Why won't you tell me? What is this for? Why are we here?" The questions stumbled over one another, barely intelligible.

"Be quiet. You'll see soon enough." It rang as an omen rather than a promise.

Indeed, mere heartbeats later, a pair of hands landed on her shoulders. Tom spun her around -- once, with the scream dying in her throat; twice, with the wind lashing at her skin; thrice, with the pebbles puncturing her toes; a fourth time, with the blindness sparking off a terror of the unknown; a fifth time...

"What do you think?"

After those successive spins, the sudden onslaught of darkness overwhelmed Ginny, and she fell back against his chest. Tom squeezed her arms to steady her, hard enough to make her wince.

As soon as the girl found her bearings, the thing he had meant for her to see stood out in these dim dungeons, lit as it was by Tom's wand. Lying in his palm was a fresh, bloody, dripping human heart (_Harry's_, her mind prodded and her stomach lurched), with two initials carved on it.

G. R.

_Ginevra Riddle frolicking with Ginevra Potter in her heart and in her hearts (sometimes pink, sometimes red,_ now black_), hearts on parchment, hearts on diary pages, hearts on trees, hearts on hearts..._

"No, oh God, Tom, no..."

"Yes, Ginny, yes," Tom whispered in her ear. "So everyone will know."


End file.
